Two years ago Umpbump interviewed Paul Hagen, who covers the Phillies for the Philadelphia Daily News and is a former president of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Now he’s back for more. I recently chatted with Hagen over email about the Phillies’ World Series victory, the team’s offseason moves and the Hall of Fame. […]

So after all the speculation and theorizing about whether MurrayChass.com is a real site written by the real Murray Chass, who used to write for the real New York Times, Sarah finally had the brilliantly simple idea of just calling up the real Murray Chass and seeing what he would say. Wisely mentioning that she […]

I went to the Deadspin Super Bowl party last Thursday evening in Tempe. It was cold — and not just by Arizona standards. We’re talking in the 40s. I met some bloggers I previously knew by name only, like Matt Ufford from With Leather, and the Mighty MJD. And I met a couple of Arizona […]

Tomorrow, MLB will announce the winner of the National League MVP Award. Candidates include Chipper Jones, Jimmy Rollins, David Wright, Prince Fielder and Matt Holliday. A while back Paul and I debated who should win the award and he ultimately convinced me that David Wright is the clear choice. I emailed that post to Philadelphia […]

A couple of weeks ago here on Umpbump, I wrote about a new opera called “The Summer King“. Written by a composer named Daniel Sonenberg, it tells the story of Josh Gibson, perhaps the most prolific hitter to have ever played in the Negro Leagues. And I’m not going to beat around the bush here. […]

Here is the English text for that interview I had with the Braves’ shortstop. Courtesy Revista Elite Magazine You’re back in the National League after a rough year in Boston. How does it feel to come back to the NL? I’m excited to return. I’m far more comfortable with this league. I’m also looking forward […]

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Last week, we asked you to vote for who you would like to see enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame. The verdict? If it were up to UmpBump readers, nobody would make it in. The leading vote getter (so far) is Jeff Bagwell, who has 60% support. Of course, in the real voting, players need […]

In what has become an annual tradition, we here at UmpBump cast our ballots for the Hall of Fame on the eve of the announcements of the voting for the real Hall of Fame. Voters can vote for anyone ever who has been retired from baseball for at least five years and is not already […]

Now that we’ve looked at every position on the diamond, as well as relief pitchers, we are nearing the end of our “Crowdsourcing the Greats” series. But before we finish, let’s turn one more time to the internet hoi polloi for answers on who the greatest baseball manager of all time was. As usual, we […]